bloodbrothers2fandomcom-20200216-history
ITCM 23 - Windy
Inside the Competitor's Mind 23 - Windy “One of the ultimate comfort foods, spaghetti bolognese. It's a lost art, a victim of culinary telephone.” Windy was talking food as he made dinner for me. I knew him as Legendary Pirate in the StrawHats guild chat. He’d offered to cook dinner when I asked him for an interview, and I’d agreed. I’m glad I did, the fragrance of food that was redolent in the apartment told me I was going to have a fabulous dinner. “Bolognese just means it's in the style of the region, Bologna, Italy. But believe it or not, traditional spaghetti bolognese isn't called bolognese and it also doesn't use spaghetti. It's just called ragu and it uses tagliatelle, which is a thin and broad pasta.” He grinned at me and shrugged. He continued to explain as he cooked, “I like to make mine with pork shoulder and minced oxtail for the best texture...or simple ground pork if that is not possible. It must be seared in a pan to create the Maillard reaction, which is the browning that creates the real meaty flavour,” he tilted the pan to point at what he was referring to. “The brown residue left in the pan from searing meat is a goldmine of flavour and it needs to be deglazed with white wine and after it’s reduced, it will be added to the ragu.” After setting the sauce to reduce, he moved on to the vegetables he had sautéeing in another pan. “The vegetable base will be sautéed onion, celery, carrot. A bit more carrot for added sweetness, garlic. The onions must be partially caramelized with some star anise, which will boost the meaty flavour once mixed with the meat.” Pointing to yet another pan, he said, “The last piece is tomatoes, it must be fresh and it must not be deseeded, that is where all the umami, or savoury flavour, is. It'll be mostly reduced in a pan before everything is combined and then fried with a bit of olive oil to concentrate all of the flavours. Once that's done, it's ready to be served on pasta, topped with parmesan. It’ll be perfect served with some garlic bread and this bottle of wine.” I smiled at his enthusiasm, and he grinned back at me, unabashed. “So anyway, I’ll answer your questions while the sauce is reducing.” He paused to stir one of the pans before continuing, “I'm a student in my 20's, and I live in Canada. The first game I got really addicted to was Diablo 2. It was Rage of Bahamut for mobile games, and I still play that. I checked out BB1 from a Rage of Bahamut promotion, and played for a couple of weeks but it felt sterile compared to Rage, so I stopped. I decided to try BB2 after its official release. It's fun and so far, it’s keeping me interested, mostly because of the promised guild events. The Strawhats group is great so I can't wait.” Then he laughed, “My ign and forum name is Windy, I chose it because we were having a windy transition between winter and spring and it seemed like a good idea. I joined the Strawhats early on because they showed the highest level of forum activity. From playing Rage of Bahamut, I knew that the best orders were the most active communities. The others just burned out and disbanded over time. People need a break from the game once in a while, it's important they enjoy the community interaction so they have something to go back to. The good guilds maintain that connection during a break in play.” His hands never stilled as he talked. First stirring the mixture in one pan, then another. At one point he started to pull the mixtures together as he continued, “F2P do stand a chance at competing for the 4/5*, but really it's just not worth the sigils and time. A whole week of grinding and some sigil spending for 1x 4/5? No, not when that same time can be spent grinding for souls. Gauntlet events are much better. While you get a weaker 4/5*, you can complete it and the 5* form is better than a 4/5*.” He stopped stirring for a minute to think, then he added, “I don’t think F2P will ever be able to reach the highest bracket on the leaderboard, but at least, we can currently compete for the lowest bracket of a tier 1 prize (1x 4/5*)” He tossed the pasta into the boiling water before saying, “I don't currently have a problem with the forum mods. As long as complaints or debates are constructive, there is a place for them. For example, the wrong way to complain is: 'what's with these shitty pull rates, don't you care about the players? Stop being a money sucking corporation' or 'Wtf, you can't raise the pull rates! I know I was complaining about the bad pull rates before, but I spent money then and every player should be subjected to the previous pull rates' or 'This stupid game is dead.'” He rolled his eyes. “A more constructive way to complain would be: 'the pull rates are really low, please raise it so the player base can expand. As it stands only high spenders get good stuff, it discourages casual spenders from getting into the game' or 'Ok, we totally didn't expect you to raise the pull rate that high. It's so drastic that I feel like you're trolling the existing p2p. Can you create some sort of player loyalty appreciation token for us so that the absolute advantage is not given to the brand new p2p?'” He shrugged, before turning his attention to pulling the sauce together, and draining the pasta. “As for my strategy, it's usually the same. Use natural regen and spend sigils if I have the opportunity to get what I want last day. If the prizes don't look very appealing, I'll just farm the event for souls. With soul fusion, even bad souls are useful.” His attention strayed from the interview as he put the finishing touches to dinner. Smiling, he looked at me and said, “Let’s eat!” Category:Mizy Category:ITCM